The locus of semantics and the decoding-inferring distinction

Abstract

This chapter addresses (i) the question of whether the notion of shared semantic content is theoretically sound, and if not (ii) whether it is possible to account for mutual understanding between interlocutors in communication without positing the level of shared semantic content. I answer the first question by looking at Relevance Theory’s (e.g. Carston R, Thoughts and utterances: the pragmatics of explicit communication. Blackwell, Oxford, 2002; Explicit communication and ‘free’ pragmatic enrichment. In: Soria B, Romero E (eds) Explicit communication: Robyn Carston’s pragmatics. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp 217–287, 2010) notion of linguistic semantics. I argue that standard Relevance Theory does not actually offer an account of linguistic semantics which is shared among the members of the same speech community or across contexts. Second, even in Relevance Theory’s terms, the process of deterministic decoding of linguistic semantics is redundant. This problem concerns the standard RT’s notion of linguistic semantics as well as the more recent RT proposal (Carston R, Linguist Rev 29(4):607–623, 2012; Word meaning, what is said and explicature. In: Penco C, Domaneschi F (eds) What is said and what is not. CSLI Publications: Stanford, 2013) that linguistic semantic content is non-conceptual. In Sect. 3.2, I discuss Burton-Roberts’ (e.g. Newcastle Working Papers Linguist 121(14):2089–2102, 2009) criticism of the double-interface tradition. I then introduce the Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts N, Where and what is phonology? A representational perspective. In: Burton-Roberts N, Carr P, Docherty G (eds) Phonological knowledge: conceptual and empirical issues. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 39–66, 2000; Meaning, semantics and semiotics. In: Capone A, Lo Piparo F, Carapezza M (eds) Perspectives on linguistic pragmatics. Springer, London, pp 1–22, 2013; Burton-Roberts Poole G, Lingua 116:562–600, 2006a; Chng S, Language, thought and literal meaning. Ph.D. thesis, University of Newcastle, 1999), a conceptual programme which rejects the double-interface view of linguistic expressions () as problematic and anyway unnecessary to account for linguistic ‘sound with a meaning’ and offers a semiotic, wholly inferential, account of meaning in language. Finally, I argue that the mechanics of the representational account can be implemented in terms of Hintzman’s (e.g. Psychol Rev 93:411–428, 1986) multiple-trace theory of memory. Like the Representational Hypothesis, Hintzman’s model predicts that the understanding of speaker-intended meaning is a wholly pragmatic, inferential process.